Blue Remembered Hills
by Ammanalien
Summary: Rodney walks out on a winter's day... and gets whumped of course.
1. Chapter 1

oOo

1

There are birds overhead; gulls. They've winged their way up the estuary, driven by the harsh winds and constant hunger this season brings. Not for the first time, Rodney marvels at their effortless flight.

A voice says "I'm glad you brought me here."

There's a warm head resting on his shoulder. Jennifer wears a knee-length tan parka with a fur-lined hood. The hood is down, though; she has a bright red band around her head which snugly covers her ears. Her hands are protected from the chill December winds by matching padded mitts, the kind that school-kids wear. Rodney remembers having a pair just like them, and he smiles to himself.

It's a perfect winter day. Snow is crisp under their boots. The air, sharply cold and dry, with that same faint tang of pine from every Christmas he can remember. The river lies before them... wide, white and still, framed by pine forest on each side, and blue, misted mountains in the distance. He feels the occasional tingle of snow melting on his lips.

Next to him is the woman he loves, and he can't remember ever feeling so complete.

"Put up your collar, Rodney, you'll catch your death!" scolds Jennifer as she raises her head and reaches over, trying clumsily to turn up the inadequate collar of his overcoat.

"My mother used to say that..." he laughs.

"She did....? You think about her often, don't you?" Jennifer's voice seems to fall flat in the dry air.

He just says, "Mmm...." and his mind goes back to winters of years ago. Taking family walks along snow-covered trails very much like this one.

An unexpected gust of icy wind takes his breath for an instant and he clears his throat and chest noisily.

"How's the cough?" asks Jennifer, and she gives his arm a sympathetic squeeze. _One of the joys of the season_, thinks Rodney ruefully... _a nice little head cold._

"Need a chest rub?" she asks, cheekily. She has hold of his arm now and peeps up at him, eyes sparkling. She leans heavily against him, and he is surprised at how keenly he feels the weight.

He doesn't answer her question because he coughs again, deeper than before. He feels colder now, like a lump of ice has settled in beneath his ribs.

A shiver catches him by surprise. Drawing his eyes away from his companion, he watches as, in the distance, spidery figures take to the ice carrying what can only be fishing gear. Poles, augers, buckets and wooden trunks. Rodney thinks again of the hungry gulls, and as if on cue they appear, wheeling down to harangue the fishermen who, intent on their mission, pay the birds no heed.

He's been ice-fishing before, of course, along the frozen shallows of the St Lawrence. Six boys crammed into a steaming ice-shack, huddled around a single hole. Catching just enough for one each, he remembers his mother's face, beaming with pride when, in triumph, he brings home his first northern pike.

So long ago now, but he feels an almost irresistible urge to join these men.... to re-live those days. He _could _do it... he could...

"Should we go back?" he asks suddenly, instantly unsure what he means by it.

The trail has led them a winding route and they are at the edge of the water now. Or at least the edge of the ice. Here the snow has taken no hold, and the ice is bare for the most part.

Squinting down past the tip of his boot, Rodney sees the depth of the frozen layer and the water bubbling and flowing beneath. Only a step farther and they would be standing in the river. He tries to remember its name.

He looks up sharply.

The trees... the river... the mountains... the jut of land on the far bank... his eyes flit from feature to feature, and then all at once he wonders...

_... where am I?_

At first the ice-bound river had felt familiar, now he realises it's unknown to him. The dark-coated fishermen move ever more slowly across the ice, until they seem to freeze into the landscape of which they are a part. To Rodney they look now like nothing more than smudges of paint on a canvas. Even the trees that tower above him on both sides have begun to drip out their colours like a child's painting.

"Jennifer?" he half whispers, half speaks, but she doesn't answer. Her face is in profile against the snow-heavy sky, and her hair streams like banners behind her.

He turns his face into the wind, wanting its icy edge to clear his mind. But somehow it's stagnant air that he breathes, strangely warm and cloying. It settles like a cold sweat on his brow.

He feels Jennifer's arm on his and, desperate with a new sense of foreboding, he twists his glove-covered hand and finds hers. He squeezes, but it is as if her hand diminishes... feels hardly there at all. He brings their joined hands up and stares. She_ is_ here.. next to him... her hand is in his. But still he _feels_ nothing.... nothing but a dull pulse of life deep within his cold chest, drawing him further into himself and away from her.

Fear washes over him like a wave. He tries to call out but nothing can match the strident calls of the gulls, and he is shouting into a vacuum, where there is no sound and no air to sustain him.

Colours merge and run together, so very bright and so very green. He watches, detached, as the sky slides down and mingles with the green light that seems to be all around.

Snow is falling steadily now, and curiously it matches the white noise that fills his head. Afraid that he is suffocating, he struggles to draw breath.

_"Breathe.... come on.... "_

Someone has spoken; patiently... whisper-quiet...

He thinks, _Jennifer? ...s'at you?_

oOo

TBC and thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

2

Into my heart an air that kills  
From yon far country blows:  
What are those blue remembered hills,  
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,  
I see it shining plain,  
The happy highways where I went  
And cannot come again.

A.E. Housman

oOo

"How long has it been?"

She can hardly get the words out; her breaths are sawing in and out and lacing the air with mist in front of her.

Nothing.

Her impatience grows.

"Come on, how long since he went in?" she raps it out, shoots it across the frosty air to whoever will listen; listen, and give her the answers she needs.

She's breathless from running and stumbling and fast-walking and then running again. Her chest is tight and burning.

She'd been injecting against whooping cough, a long line of mothers and their children in the village gathering place. A message came. _There's been an accident - someone's fallen through river ice, and can't be found._

"Twenty-five.... thirty-five... I-I don't...." Sheppard looks like he might be in shock. He runs an unsteady hand through his damp hair. He's soaking wet and shivering.

Something is laid out at his feet. Against the patches of old snow, it looks like a dark piece of driftwood, gnarled and shiny wet. But it's a body; they dragged it from beneath the cracked ice moments ago, and even then it had been unmistakable. She'd seen Ronon and John pulling it out of the water as she emerged, panting and staggering, from the woodland.

"It's too late.." says Teyla.

"No, there's still time... still time...." she mumbles. She's already ignoring them, dropping all her packs and bags at once.

"Bring him up here!" she shouts.

Ronon and Sheppard drag the man up the steep river bank by the arms, slipping and sliding as they come, and she can tell from the way his head hangs, that he is dead. For the moment at least.

They lay him down, flat on his back and she kneels over him, on the ground... the cold leeches quickly through her dark pants.

McKay's face is white and shiny, like a marble effigy. He looks strangely young... serene... but not alive... definitely not alive. He looks like a newborn, yet to draw his first breath... not dead, only waiting for life.

"Get back to Atlantis... tell them what happpened... bring a med-team."

She is aware then of a small noise, a gentle sobbing, as though a child is lost and cries for its mother.

Someone's hand is laid on her shoulder, and she spares a second to look up at Ronon, his face stony white, his eyes like flints. He anchors her... calms her. She needs to do her job; she sniffs and stifles her sobs.

She waves him away, feigning annoyance.

"Go... I don't need any more patients" He nods at her, then he turns and drags John away towards the woodland path.

Tipping McKay's head back carefully, she gives him a breath; his lips feel icy cold.

She presses her ear to the scientist's rib cage. She hears nothing.

Whipping her head up she feels impatiently along the angle of his jaw. Stubble rasps beneath her fingertips. Still no sign of a heartbeat.

"What is it? What can we do for him?" asks Teyla.

Again she lays her head on him and listens... she has to be sure.

"If his heart beats at all, and we do compressions... we risk sending it into failure. It's extremely delicate right now" she answers.

A tiny pulse bobs against her finger, just once, and she feels victorious.

She whispers to herself, "It's enough... it's enough..."

She stoops, locks her lips to his and breathes again. Then she tears open a holdall and pulls out tubing and paper-wrapped packets.

Quickly and deftly she slides the breathing tube in and attaches the hand pump.

"Teyla, can you do this?" Teyla nods and, after clambering through mud and slushy snow, she takes the device.

Mud from the river is everywhere, it's down Jennifer's nails and in her mouth. She ignores it and pushes and pulls at the wet clothing which is sapping McKay's body heat even now.

"I need dry things - your dry clothes... give them to me!" she barks at the small knot of curious villagers around them.

Teyla speaks now... quickly, as if she feels the need to confess something: "We could not find him. He broke through, John tried to grab - " Teyla looks as if she is only just holding it together. "The river... it-it carried him further. Jennifer, it's been _so long_."

She looks away from Teyla and tries not to think of how long it's been. She cannot feel her fingers. Her fingernails are useless, soft and bending as she tries to loosen his belt... the tough straps of his fieldpack.

"We can't move him far - not yet, not without proper equipment."

As she speaks she is spreading cloaks and jerkins on the ground. Then she slides the unconscious man onto this makeshift pallet, aided by several of the now half-dressed villagers.

A huge man has an equally huge leather overcoat, heavy and lined with soft fur. As they remove items of saturated clothing this coat is slid carefully over the unconscious man, until only a pale head is visible.

She casts about and sees a broken-down hut, close to the trees. "There... that place. It has a chimney... Teyla?" she adds, beseechingly, and as Teyla nods and rises, her hands replace Teyla's and slide around the smooth rubber bag; she is now breathing for her patient. The Athosian strides away with some villagers in tow, their eyes downcast searching for firewood.

She allows herself a moment of self-indulgence and with one finger she delicately smooths away a streak of mud from the forehead of the man she loves.

_Talk to me.. make me laugh.._

But Teyla is back now, and it's time to move the patient.

"Okay, let's get him into the hut"

It's hard to carry a clumsily wrapped corpse, but they manage it. Someone has lit the meagre hearth, and it's a merry enough blaze that Jennifer can feel a definite heat.

"We warm him slowly - that's very important. His heart needs to be monitored. We have to support his breathing until he's ready to breathe for himself"

"Is that going to happen?" Teyla's look is one of disbelief.

"Yes..." she says at first, confidently. Then, "I don't know. People have survived... some lost for more than an hour under water."

She sighs, tries to look more optimistic than she truly feels.

"We have a fire. I really need an oxygen warmer... and a humidifier... but we'll have to make do with what we have. I've intubated him... we'll need to share the hand pumping, we could be at it for a while." She looks around the cramped little hunting shack. They have hung Rodney's wet things around the fireside. "These clothes will make a damp atmosphere. It's not great but it's better than nothing."

She looks down on her patient, his face illuminated in the orange glow. She checks his pulse once more to find it present but agonisingly slow. It's quiet; the small number of villagers that remain are outside, gathered around their own fire. There is only the sound of the crackling hearth and the rhythmic whoosh as Teyla works the air bag.

"My med team will be here soon, with all the proper equipment... " She takes his hand in hers.

He is coming back, she feels sure of that. His core temperature is climbing, even his hand feels more alive now.

She's done everything she can; she's warmed him, given him air, supported his failing heart and now the rest is up to him.

oOo

TBC and thanks for your reviews!


	3. Chapter 3

oOo

3

"This is... glorious." He ripped off both his gloves and smacked them against his thigh. He loved this kind of weather; cold, bright and dry. He would have to bring Jennifer here... when she was finished; did she like the cold? He would find out.

John stood hunched with his arms folded, his cheeks rosy. "Should have brought your skates.." he said, wryly.

Rodney gave him a sharp look:

"I think not; can't tell how thick the ice is... and rivers? Very unpredictable... unstable. Because of the current, you know..."

He turned to find Ronon and Teyla eyeing him in a disgruntled fashion, both looked fed up.

"Well... this is very interesting but we should get back" said Sheppard, "Looks like those readings you had were iron deposits... nothing too exciting," went on the colonel, pulling up his collar and huffing into the frigid atmosphere.

Rodney grinned.

"Huh, you think this is cold, don't you? Well, let me tell you... this? This is not cold - _balmy_, I call this... have you been to Toronto in February? I have, and just let's say that if you don't-"

They had all turned to go back up the track... _ignoring me,_ he thought, _typical..._ but as he followed them, a brief but harsh gust of wind caught one of the gloves he held and it was whisked away. It skittered to a halt where the trees gave way to ice, several yards from the path.

_Damn it_, he thought.

Sparing a glance at the backs of his team mates, he hurried after it, seeing the black glove nestled between tall, dead cat tails, at the river's edge. Considering the ice briefly, he saw no danger, these being the shallows and all.

But as he stooped to retrieve his glove, his left foot slipped on an icy spur; his balance wavered a little.

_Woah..._

His feet did a dance; _don't say I'm going to fall on my ass for all to see,_ he thought_._

He heard Sheppard shout, "Quit horsin' around, McKay"

He put out a hand to steady himself and found the rough bark of an old tree. He pulled heavily upon it but instead of taking his weight the worm-ridden structure shuddered and then simply broke off, snapping like a match stick.

He tried to jump backwards afraid the falling tree might crush him, but that was the least of his worries.

For in fact this river had no real shallows, formed as it was by alien geological forces on an alien planet. Beneath his feet was a scant half-inch of ice, and then five feet in depth of river water. Maybe the ice could take his weight, but it certainly couldn't support the tree trunk... it fell at his feet and crashed through to the water below.

He'd grown up in Canada; he knew what deadly cold was. He'd known of people killed by hypothermia on an afternoon stroll. As his body inevitably followed the path of the ancient tree and was swallowed up by icy water, he knew: It was highly probable he would die today.

Words like _undertow_ and _cold shock_ tumbled through his mind.

There was time for a moment of regret; for dying, and for the fact that he would die _here_, light years from Earth, from Canada, from where he always imagined his bones would rest.

He was not a religious man, but he had a basic belief in the human spirit, and the thought of his disembodied and trapped psyche wandering this alien world for eternity was not a comforting one.

He gasped once and took in enough water to paralyse him with cold. His body succumbed quickly to rapid heat loss and after a mere fifty seconds of being submerged, he fell unconscious, unaware that he had been pulled further under the ice and was now virtually invisible to his teammates.

Had he been able to see, he would, perhaps, have made out their ghostly shapes above him, blurred and indistinct, as they risked themselves to find him. Had he been able to hear, maybe he would have heard their muffled cries, panicked and edged with despair.

And if he had been able to feel, what then? Maybe he would have felt a certain frustration, destined as he was to die a meaningless death, on a nameless planet, with no tombstone and no grave to mark his passing.

But as his body drifted insensible beneath the ice, all of this was academic; death lay upon him like a shroud made of numbing coldness, and save for the smallest of hopes, he was lost.

oOo

In spite of herself she dozes.

It's warm now, inside the simple hut. Her back is stiff... she sits cross-legged, her tilted head cupped in the palm of one hand, elbow to knee.

Through drooping eyelashes she watches McKay's face; it's relaxed... slightly pink.

She thinks it's part of being a doctor; being able to rest with one eye on your patient at all times. Her hands are still tingling warmly.

The sight of his rosy complexion is gratifying; both she and Teyla have worked on their patient for long minutes, massaging skin and flexing joints. It is an intimate process, one which she is used to, but she wonders what thoughts were running through the other woman's mind.

She has sent Teyla outside to take a break... to get some fresh air. The atmospere inside is damp and quite unpleasantly stuffy.

It's awkward down here on the floor; there are no chairs or furniture of any kind in this place. Now and again she stiffly unfolds cramped legs, to find another permutation that works.

Luckily the structure around her is sound, the roof is good and the bleak air squeezes through only a few small chinks in the fabric of the building.

The fire is dying, glowing with a brooding red light. She stirs; yawns, and hears her jaw crack. She stretches tired arms and flexes aching fingers. Another couple of logs tumble into the fire with a bump and hiss.

She believes he will recover, that they have brought him back from the brink, as it were. They stopped pushing air into him ten minutes ago, and it's a huge relief.. a milestone in his recovery.

This positivity she keeps at the forefront of her mind; the fact that he is more precious to her than any one thing has ever been, she keeps towards the back of her mind. It's easy, actually... easier than she thought it would be.

In those first nightmarish minutes, when she had thought him dead and beyond help, only Ronon's calming influence had saved her from running full-tilt into panic, a state where she would have been unable to properly care for her patient.

Now she is locked into the role of physician, and she will not waver.

She takes a breath; time for another obs. But before she has the chance to pick up her instruments, there is a change. She sees his lips move minutely... a tiny constant tremor showing this body is capable of fixing itself; he is shivering.

_Thank God..._ she breathes this into her hands, which she holds together, at her chin, palm to palm.

She blinks and stares at them dumbly; _has she really been praying all this time?_

oOo

TBC and thanks for your patience....


	4. Chapter 4

oOo

4

"Rodney? Can you hear me?"

"_Rodney_"

But there is no answer.

At that moment she hears a clatter at the door to the hut; it squeaks open. Teyla pops in her head, and smiles... the med-team is here.

At last, Jennifer can rise from her cramped knees. She feels light-headed for a moment; the room does a lazy spin and then rights itself. Her vision comes back and there, standing at the door, like an answer to prayer, is Carson Beckett.

oOo

Dr Beckett fastens the clasp on the red kit box. He has given Rodney a brief but thorough examination. Jennifer had looked relieved to see him, and backed off almost immediately in order to give the team space. This small group of highly trained people is now preparing the patient for his journey home. Things are not so black; McKay is yet to regain consciousness but he seems stable for the time being and his vitals are satisfactory. It's hard to believe in fact that anything is amiss with the scientist. Dr Keller has done a stirling job. Beckett takes a moment to turn and look for his colleague.

She's there... off in a corner, on hands and knees, busying herself folding pieces of drab clothing, and then... folding them again. Her eyes are in shadow, but he guesses they are wide and troubled.

"So... how are we doing?" She starts at the sound of his voice, as he moves away from Rodney and towards where she still kneels.

As he gets closer he hears her take a deep but unsteady breath. Carson doesn't miss the tremor in the hand that tucks a strand of damp hair behind her ear. He too kneels on the crude dirt floor.

"He's been... ah... steady at 97.1 for 15 minutes... unresponsive throughout... intubated at-"and she checks her watch, brows knit, tense, "-ah-... eleven twenty..."

Carson's large and capable hands descend upon both of her flapping ones, and envelop them completely.

"It's alright love.. we've got him now. And that's not what I meant." He gives her his warmest and most reassuring smile.

He knows this is what he needs to tell her; that she can stop... that the responsibility is no longer hers to bear. He knows very well what they have together, this young woman and his best friend.

"You've done a great job - he'll be fine I'm sure. Tough as old boots, our Rodney...." She tries to smile back at him, but the Scottish medic is worried. There's something about her... a certain hard edge - a strung out and lonely look that doesn't become her at all. She's wired, that's for certain... so _up there_, she's flying.. and sometime soon she'll come down - hard.

"Rodney's going to be fine, but - Jennifer - it's you I'm worried about" and as he says it he has to search out her wandering eyes with his own steady ones. She blinks at him.

"Me? I'm okay. I didn't even - even -"

She swallows hard and stares past him... at Rodney.

"I wasn't the one who-who dragged..." it seems she can't finish this sentence either and then suddenly she asks, almost guiltily,

"John and Ronon! How are they? I didn't check... I should have checked-" She slaps a hand to her head, berating herself, a theatrical and strangely out of place gesture. Beckett's anxiety is growing.

He reaches over quickly, and takes her hands again. They are cold.

"They're right as rain, my dear, no cause for all this..."

He is referring to the state she is rapidly getting into; her eyes, although wide, are dull and red rimmed. Her hands, even though he holds them, she rubs constantly against her knees. Carson can easily hear the hitches in her breathing, see the trembling of her frame.

Of course he's trained to recognise these things... the signs of shock. He's seen them many times. Some people will deny their condition, try to hide it, but you can't hide much from your doctor.

"Let's get you warmed up, shall we?" he suggests.

Jennifer just looks puzzled. "I'm not cold" is the almost indignant answer.

"You let me be the judge of that" he says, not unkindly.

Before he has chance to do anything, though, there is a sudden ripple of movement around the fire place; a cough... faces turn to search out the doctor.

"Doctor?"

"Yes" is their simultaneous answer.

"He's conscious..." says a nurse.

Carson goes to make a move but watches as Jennifer scuttles past him, back to the fire. She finds a spot and squeezes in.

As Beckett himself approaches the group, the prone form of McKay comes into view. Carson and his team have administered an IV, nasal canula and have dressed their patient in warm, blue scrubs.

He sees Jennifer's left hand resting on the scientist's shoulder; her nails are blue-white. Her expectant face is held above his.

McKay's face convulses and he gives another painful cough.

"Breathe.... come on.... " she whispers.

His eyes flicker open.

"Hey..." she breathes and her mouth curves slowly into a smile.

Rodney's mouth works.

"Shhh..." she says, shaking her head, "Don't talk..."

He swallows and says,

"Jennifer...?"

She nods.

"Glad... you didn't.. leave me here..."

There is a pause, her eyes close briefly and then open again; her smile is gone.

"Now why would I leave you.. here or anywhere else?"

And then they just stare... their faces sober and thoughtful, and it's only now that Carson notices; they are hand in hand.

oOo

TBC and thanks for your reviews... they keep me at it!


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